He meant home, as in the place where he sleeps the well-earned sleep of the triumphant, but he might have been talking about his home away from home at Gillette Stadium.

Thanks to a surprising series of events, home is where he'll be for the AFC championship game, thanks to a decisive 41-28 win over Houston and Baltimore's upset of Denver on Saturday.

And again, the Patriots' ultimate hopes will rest on his shoulders. The season-ending injury to Rob Gronkowski resets the bar for what the team's offense can do, and leaves it up to Brady to figure out who, when and where the ball will go against an increasingly difficult caliber of opponent.

The Ravens are the Patriots' thorniest of thorns, playing them tight just about every time during their time under QB Joe Flacco, and anyone expecting anything but a nailbiter in the AFC title game is hopped up on bravado and optimism.

"We know it's not going to be easy," special teams ace Matthew Slater said. Baltimore "has great leadership, with both their players and their coaches, and they play the game the right way."

And the Ravens won't have to contend with Gronkowski, the team's most valuable offensive player not named Brady.

Gronkowski was there in the locker room for just a split second as the media were allowed entrance Sunday night; he strode across the room, looking as strong and healthy as ever, an amiable expression on his face, and ducked into the exit. He is gone for the duration after re-breaking his forearm, and as fellow tight end Michael Hoomanawanui said succinctly and well: "It stinks."

But fortunately for the Patriots and their fans, there's always a Plan B — or, more accurately, a Plan WW.

Nothing about the Brady-to-Wes Welker connection makes sense.

Neither was judged good enough to play coming out of college; Brady drafted in the sixth round (where pro football hopes go to die), and Welker not even picked at all. Brady was a skinny, slow kid who'd lost his starting job in college, and Welker was (and is) a short, slow kid who couldn't make the Chargers in his first try at the NFL and was an unknown before coming to New England.

Brady is 35, Welker, 31 — ages at which most players at their positions are watching NFL games from their recliners. But there they were Sunday, hooking up eight times for 131 yards, unstoppable as usual, cementing their shared status as one of the most successful passing game tandems in history.

"We had a whole plan built "» and all those plans changed," Brady said. And so, he went back to his ultimate security blanket, Welker, again and again, until the Texans were packing their bags.

While Brady is an extension of Bill Belichick in terms of how he gets things done on the field, Welker is an extension of Belichick in his demeanor. He's got a stone face, a sly sense of humor, doesn't get too high or too low, and is as reliable and predictable as they come. Which is a good thing, in this league, and particularly for this team.

The media had Welker's locker staked out after the game, a pack of 30 or so with cameras and microphones at the ready, and when he came trudging out to address them he took his spot and disappeared from view, speaking in a low monotone and saying very little.

The man lets his play do the talking.

Of course, Brady and Welker weren't doing it alone. Running back Shane Vereen had a breakout game off the bench for Danny Woodhead; the offensive line manhandled Houston's front; Rob Ninkovich had the nail-in-the-coffin interception in the third quarter.

But the Brady-Welker combo was the engine that made things go, as it has so often over the past six years. The slant to Welker is like the second coming of the old Green Bay sweep run, a play so good that no one could stop it even when they knew it was coming.

At times this year, the Patriots have tried to move away from Welker, and his expiring contract will be an issue again in the off-season. But after watching him deliver so often, and take so many hits, you do sometimes wish the Patriots would go away from their unimpeachable, all-business decision-making and just throw a sweetheart deal at Welker.

"The kid — the man — is just such a unique guy," Slater said of Welker. "The thing that jumps out is what a professional the guy is. The guy works. He works, works, it's unbelievable. His toughness, his clutch catches, you can just go on and on. We lean on him heavily, and he comes through."

The Texans were exposed for who they were within the game's first minute. They had a kickoff returner who wasn't fast enough to score a touchdown when all that stood between him and the end zone was turf, and an offense that wasn't good enough to punch it into the end zone from 12 yards out.

Fifty-nine more minutes of uninspired action confirmed the Texans' status as pretenders, and as they trudged off the field in the south end zone to a chorus of catcalls from happy Patriot fans, you had to feel a little bad for them.

They didn't have a chance.

But the Patriots do — and that chance, to return to the Super Bowl for a sixth time in a 12-year span (no team has ever done it), will come down to Tom Brady, and Wes Welker, and Bill Belichick, and Gillette Stadium, and the Baltimore Ravens.